People went on about death bringing friends together, but it wasn't true. The graveyard, the stony dirt - that's what it was like now . . . Despite the three women knowing each other better than their own siblings, Sylvie's death had opened up strange caverns of distance between them.Four older women have a lifelong friendship of the best kind: loving, practical, frank and steadfast. But when Sylvie dies, the ground shifts dangerously for the remaining three. Can they survive together without her?They are Jude, a once-famous restaurateur, Wendy, an acclaimed public intellectual, and Adele, a renowned actress now mostly out of work. Struggling to recall exactly why they've remained close all these years, the grieving women gather for Christmas at Sylvie's old beach house - not for festivities, but to clean the place out before it is sold.Without Sylvie to maintain the group's delicate equilibrium, frustrations build and painful memories press in. Fraying tempers,...

A deeply moving novel about forgiveness, grief, and what it means to be 'good', from the award-winning author of The Natural Way of Things and The Weekend.A woman abandons her city life and marriage to return to the place she grew up, finding solace in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Monaro.She does not believe in God, doesn't know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive life almost by accident. As she gradually adjusts to the rhythms of monastic life, she ruminates on her childhood in the nearby town. She finds herself turning again and again to thoughts of her mother, whose early death she can't forget.Disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signalling a new battle against the rising infestation.Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who left the community decades before to minister to deprived...

'The paint itself is part of the painting's meaning; the words do not merely tell, but are the story...' —Charlotte WoodIn The Best Australian Stories 2016, Charlotte Wood, author of The Natural Way of Things (winner of the 2016 Stella Prize, and the 2016 Indie Book of the Year), presents twenty pieces of outstanding short fiction.Featuring the work of exciting new voices alongside stories by established favourites, this is a collection of great diversity. If it has a unifying thread, writes Wood, it might be her own preoccupation with 'the trio of ghosts, monsters and visitations'. Some emerge from the natural world, others from the inner lives of characters contemplating death and its aftermath. Other stories still are playful, experimental or poetic, and celebrate the colours of the human experience.Together they form an anthology of unusual power and resonance, which will surprise and delight in equal measure.Contributors include...

Love, envy, resentment, regret, tenderness - established, bestselling and award-winning writers explore the tensions, alliances and affections between siblings in this dazzling collection of stories with contributions from Robert Drewe, Roger McDonald, Tegan Bennett Daylight, Cate Kennedy and many more. 'Your brother or sister, it might be said, is your other self - your grander, sadder, braver, shrewder, uglier, slenderer self ... Your sibling is your most severe judge and your fiercest defender. You must always rescue them. They always abandon you ... You recognise one another, this is your relief and your ruin. They are your duty. They stun you with the sudden presence and force of their goodness. They give you Christmas presents that show you are strangers. You are strangers.' You love them; it cannot be explained why or how.' -From Charlotte Woods' Introduction to Brothers and Sisters. Critics and readers alike have long commented on Charlotte Wood's acute ability to dissect sibling relationships in her novels. Life-long resentments, tensions, alliances and affections between brothers and sisters play out in her books to brilliant effect. Here, Charlotte brings her skills to an anthology of stories by well-known and new writers - Tony Birch, Tegan Bennett Daylight, Robert Drewe, Ashley Hay, Cate Kennedy, Nam Le, Roger McDonald, Paddy O'Reilly, Virginia Peters, Michael Sala, Christos Tsiolkas, Charlotte Wood - who have written about an element of sister/brother relationships, both in fictional and non-fictional forms.

Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. The Submerged Cathedral is a superb, enthralling novel of love, tragedy and atonement from the acclaimed author of The Children'Set me as a seal on your heart, for love is stronger than death.' Spanning many years, travelling across Australia's vast continent and through some of Europe's great cities, The Submerged Cathedral is a beguiling, heartbreaking story of paradise and the fall, of sacrifice and atonement, and of sisterly love and rivalry. Most of all, however, it is about an enduring and sacred love- a love stronger than death- and the journeys undertaken in its name. Written in spare, haunting prose, this novel is a work of the highest literary merit, as well as a timeless love story that will enthrall readers. The release of Charlotte Wood's acclaimed first novel, Pieces of a Girl, marked her as a young writer of great promise; The Submerged Cathedral thrillingly confirms that promise with astonishing assurance and lyricism.

The hilarious, tender and heartbreaking story of a watershed day in the life of Stephen - aimless, unhappy and unfulfilled, this stiflingly hot December day is the day he has decided to dump his girlfriend. A sharply observed, 24-hour urban love story.Why I can't review Animal People'I read Charlotte Wood's novel Animal People twice. I think it's one of the best contemporary novels I have read. But I cannot review it. I tried a number of times and failed each time. I only recently realised why this is. I don't want to review Animal People. I want to recommend it.'I felt I had been dismantled, cleaned and reassembled by the novel. The novel did not change me. It reintroduced me to the important parts that make up who I am. And this is why I have had such difficulty writing about Animal People.'To write a review is to accept that this book is like the last book I reviewed. That Charlotte Wood's reason for writing is much like any other...

She hears her own thick voice deep inside her ears when she says, 'I need to know where I am.' The man stands there, tall and narrow, hand still on the doorknob, surprised. He says, almost in sympathy, 'Oh, sweetie. You need to know what you are.'Two women awaken from a drugged sleep to find themselves imprisoned in a broken-down property in the middle of nowhere. Strangers to each other, they have no idea where they are or how they came to be there with eight other girls, forced to wear strange uniforms, their heads shaved, guarded by two inept yet vicious armed jailers and a 'nurse'. The girls all have something in common, but what is it? What crime has brought them here from the city? Who is the mysterious security company responsible for this desolate place with its brutal rules, its total isolation from the contemporary world? Doing hard labour under a sweltering sun, the prisoners soon learn what links them: in each girl's past is a sexual scandal with a...